Julian’s Schemes against the Christians in the Army

When Julian acted and wrote in this way, he expected that by these means he would easily lead his subjects to change their religion. Although he was eager to do away with the Christian religion, he was plainly ashamed to use violence, for fear of being thought a tyrant. Still, he used every means that could possibly be thought of to lead his subjects back to paganism, and he pressed the soldiers especially hard, sometimes speaking to them one by one and sometimes through their officers. To accustom them to the worship of the gods in everything, he brought back the old form of the standard of the Roman armies, which, as we have said already, Constantine had changed into the sign of the cross at the command of God. Julian also had painted beside his own figure in the public pictures either Jupiter coming out of heaven and handing him the symbols of imperial power, a crown or a purple robe, or else Mars or Mercury with their eyes fixed on him, as if to show their admiration for his eloquence and his skill in war. He set the pictures of the gods beside his own so that the people might be led secretly to worship them under the pretext of paying due honor to him. In this way he misused the old customs and tried to hide his purpose from his subjects. He reasoned that if they obeyed him on this point, they would be all the readier to obey him in everything else; but if they dared to refuse, he would have grounds to punish them as breakers of Roman custom and offenders against the emperor and the state. There were only a very few who saw through his designs and refused to pay the customary homage to his pictures, and the law took its course against them. But the crowd, out of ignorance or simplicity, went along as usual with the old custom and thoughtlessly paid homage to his image. The emperor gained little by this trick, yet he did not stop trying to bring about a change of religion. [a]

The next scheme he turned to was less subtle and more violent than the first, and it put to the test the courage of many soldiers attached to the court. The fixed day came round for giving money to the troops. It usually fell on the anniversary of some Roman festival, such as the emperor’s birthday or the founding of some imperial city. Julian reflected that soldiers are by nature thoughtless and simple and inclined to be greedy for money, and so he concluded that this would be a good opportunity to lure them into the worship of the gods. So as each soldier came up to receive his money, he was ordered to offer sacrifice, for fire and incense had been placed beside the emperor for this purpose beforehand, according to an old Roman custom. Some of the soldiers had the courage to refuse both to sacrifice and to receive the gold. Others were so used to keeping the law and custom that they went along with it without imagining they were committing a sin. Still others, dazzled by the gleam of the gold, or forced by fear and by the thought of the test that was right in front of them, went along with the pagan rite and let themselves fall into the temptation they should have fled. [c] It is told that some of those who had fallen into this sin without understanding it were sitting at table and drinking to one another, when one of them happened to name Christ over the cups. Another of the guests at once cried out, “It is strange that you call on Christ, when only a short while ago you denied him for the emperor’s gift by throwing incense into the fire.” When they heard this, they all suddenly realized the sin they had committed. They got up from the table and rushed out into the streets, where they cried out and wept and called on everyone to witness that they were and would remain Christians, and that they had offered the incense without knowing it, with the hand alone and not with the consent of their mind. Then they went before the emperor, threw back his gold, and boldly asked him to take back his gift. They begged him to put them to death, declaring that they would never give up their convictions, whatever tortures might be inflicted for the sake of Christ on the rest of their body because of the sin their hand had committed. Whatever anger the emperor may have felt against them, he held back from killing them, so that they would not have the honor of martyrdom. So he simply stripped them of their military rank and dismissed them from the palace.